Sixty-five years after
the death of its founding father, Pakistanis are still searching for
Mohammed Ali Jinnah's vision for the country - and a missing historical
speech.

During much of its existence, Pakistanis have been encouraged
to believe that Mr Jinnah created Pakistan in the name of Islam as a
theocratic state.

Others have disagreed, arguing the founding father wanted a Muslim-majority but secular and progressive country.

The debate over the two competing and contradictory visions
has intensified in recent years as the country reels from growing
Islamic extremism and Taliban militancy.

At the heart of this debate are some public addresses of Mr Jinnah given around the time of the partition of India in 1947.

Transcripts of those addresses have been available in Pakistan.

Crucial speech
The archives of state-owned broadcaster, Radio Pakistan, also
contain cranky old audio recordings of most of those speeches, except
for one: his address to the Constituent Assembly in the port city of
Karachi on 11 August 1947, three days before the creation of Pakistan.

For liberals in Pakistan, it was a crucial speech in which Mr
Jinnah spoke in the clearest possible terms of his dream that the
country he was creating would be tolerant, inclusive and secular.

"You are free. You are free to go to your temples, you are
free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this
state of Pakistan," Jinnah declared. "You may belong to any religion or
caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state."

Documented evidence suggest that Mr Jinnah's words didn't go
down well with the powerful and ambitious religious ideologues around
him at the time, who then made sure the speech was virtually blacked out
in the next day's newspapers.